Dalia LasaiteCo-Founder and CEO of CGTraderLithuania

Startup responsibility starts and ends with you

I started my first company at age 22. It was a part-time project that coincided with starting my first job at an asset management firm. I liked the job, but thought that a startup would let me get results much faster. Nevertheless, it took a while to launch it (we had no idea about lean startups back then), but once we got funding from a UK accelerator, I had no second thoughts about quitting my job at 25.

That startup did not survive, nor did the second one I co-founded. However, the lessons learned were immensely helpful at my third startup, 3D design marketplace CGTrader. I joined co-founder Marius Kalytis and we grew CGTrader to one of the top players in the market. This included fundraising, landing thousands of customers and building the team of 20 people.

I enjoy startups because of the large impact you can have on them. There are very few things you cannot change in a startup, so the responsibility for the company and growth starts and ends with you. This is what makes failure painful, but also what makes success so extremely rewarding.

Dalia Lasaite, 31, is co-founder and CEO of CGTrader. CGTrader is one of the largest 3D design marketplaces in the world, with over 220,000 3D models and 400,000 3D designers on board. Its customers come from advertising, video production, gaming, design, VR/AR and 3D printing industries. CGTrader is backed by Intel Capital and Practica Capital. Before CGTrader, Dalia worked in asset management and co-founded two other startups.